Tascam's DA45 DAT machine records 16-bit on standard DAT tapes or 24-bit in High Resolution (HR) mode at double speed.If you feel you need more mastering resolution, then choosing one of the specialist, 24-bit DAT recorders is an option, but bear in mind that there are a lot of other digital tape recorders which can be used for mastering as well, including multitrack machines such as Alesis ADATs or Tascam DA-series machines. The only caveat is that fades should be done at the mastering stage, not when you mix down to DAT, otherwise subsequent processing could cause the tail end of the fade to sound a little grainy. If the material is under-recorded by 20dB, then it might be a different story. Since DAT was introduced, I've mastered many albums using source material from DAT and I've never encountered problems, provided that the original recording used virtually all the available headroom of the DAT medium. It follows then that classical or acoustic music with a very wide dynamic range is most at risk, while pop music with its limited dynamic range is least likely to be affected in any audible way. When digital data is subjected to a loss of resolution, the effects are felt most at very low levels where fewer bits are being used to represent the signal. How much this loss of resolution matters depends to some extent on the dynamic range of your music. Every time you process digital audio, a small amount of resolution is lost due to scaling or rounding-up/down errors, so in an ideal world it's better to record at more than 16 bits, then dither down to 16 bits at the very end of the mastering process, just before preparing your CD master. Recording your final mix in a 16-bit format is fine if it is your final mix, but most of the time you'll need to do some post-mix mastering, even if it's only adjusting levels or adding a bit of EQ and compression. On the face of it, this might seem to be as good as you'll ever need for CD production, but that's not necessarily the case. Digital Audio TapeĪlthough specialised 24-bit models are produced, the commonly available DAT (Digital Audio Tape) recorders are designed to work at 44.1 and 48kHz, recording 16-bit uncompressed audio, which gives them the ability to record in the format that is required for commercial CD or audio CD-R production (44.1kHz, 16-bit). Before you can decide which one is best for you, you need to know the pros and cons of each format. Even today, those old Revox machines can give fantastic results, but now they compete with DAT, Minidisc, CD-R, CD-RW and hard drive as a repository for your precious mixes. There are now lots of different ways to make a stereo master recording of your final mix, so how do you work out which one is best for you?īack in the early days of home studios, there was little choice when it came to recording your stereo master - the serious guys used a Revox quarter-inch tape machine running at 7.5 or 15ips (inches per second) while everyone else got by with domestic open-reel tape recorders or even cassette decks.
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